


over the love

by closet_monster



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Angst, Canon Universe, Dark, F/M, Heavy Angst, Hurt, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sad, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:15:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27677245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/closet_monster/pseuds/closet_monster
Summary: Some things should be forgotten, Nesta thinks. Most things. But that's mostly because she cares not for justice.Cassian disagrees.
Relationships: Nesta Archeron/Cassian
Comments: 14
Kudos: 84





	over the love

**Author's Note:**

> Hi this is awful and sad and uncomfortable and hits close to home. Discusses when Tomas Mandray sexually harassed Nesta. Lots of self hate and victim blaming that comes from her, because they live in nearly medieval ages and things aren't really great. I actually got lost in the sauce and don't know what happened here. If you want to blame anyone for this, blame sayosdreams/ivy_thalassa because it is her fault. But if you like it do give me love, I'm willing to share.  
> ps it's called Over The Love for Florence and the Machine's song. I used a line here.

If anyone dared ask the eldest Archeron what she thought of the things life made of her,  _ though they never would, _ she would probably shrug, look elsewhere and move on.

Nesta was or had been, somewhere along her core, a human woman — and for human women, there was nothing great or fair about their stories. So maybe out of the customary hopelessness that was woven to what she one day had been, Nesta had convinced herself long ago that things were just the way they had to be, and there wasn't much that could be done of fate. Things were bad because  _ good _ wasn't for someone like her. It never was. She didn't have the right to cry over any hurt because, to some extent, it was all well deserved.

All that was evil was soon enough met with it's equivalent punishment. And Nesta was bad; bad as a crying child, as a spiteful bitter teen, as a raging woman. One who'd starve to death only to inflict her father, though he never cared enough to hurt. She was bad as a threat, bad as the god who swallowed her whole, bad as death. Bad enough to rip it's foul flesh with her teeth.

Bad as a woman who tasted god on her tongue and made it cry in fear.

Nesta was bad.

It was in the holy beast of silver magic trapped within her veins, thickening her skin, grinding it's teeth and grinning in the dark. Bad like what her mother would have called a whore, bad to sleep with so many males she couldn't even name. Nesta was so bad, she never expected to be worth of anything good. And she wasn't one to cry when it didn't come her way. There was no such thing as justice in the land of the wicked.

Elain would wail and Feyre would stomp like a child, but disgrace had to be Nesta's greatest friend. She could be found perfectly unbothered in whatever misadventure came her way next. Steel was laced to her fiber.

Nesta would never meet justice, would never meet revenge. None of her cycles were ever closed: bits and pieces of her story were chucked into an empty vastness of nothing, destined to be forgotten and buried by time. That she lost her mother, lost her house, lost her father everyday. Lost her sister many times over, that she was thrown around like a ragdoll by a man whose name she could hardly even remember these days —  _ then another, _ who never touched her body but was glad to play with her heart. Nesta might not have lost, but she took way too many hits to her pride.

Then, she lost her life — it was torn from her harsh grasp, was pulled from her body, drowned in the dark. There, in the timeless abyss, Nesta lost so much that she took something back.

A mistake.

Then, she kept losing.

Over and over again.

Lost times enough to realize that it didn't matter. Nothing would ever be made right, not for her. Wounds would never be tended to, but they'd mend by the means of spiteful rage. There was absolutely no consequence to tearing yet another piece of her apart — Nesta could be destroyed, because she didn't truly belong to herself, and her pain didn't matter to anyone. She was made to be spat on.

Maybe somewhere, under someone's watchful eye, it had been defined that she would brace the hits. Nesta Archeron was to be hurt, she was to be used, she was to suffer — and it was perfectly right. From the one time she took it back, Nesta was doomed to spend the rest of her life regretting the choice. The punishment was enough for her to know not to push back. That sitting back in quiet unavenged sorrow was the best course of action.

It's what she does.

And mainly one of the reasons why she never tells Cassian that most illyrians hiss when she comes out of the house. That half the males would mutter under their breath about how much they'd enjoy killing the witch, and how the other half talked about fucking her; things too rough and degrading to be any good. Sometimes, they hinted to both.

Nesta wasn't new to male violence.

She was terrified, because her body could still feel pain and her soul would hurt, but she wasn't shocked. It wasn't new. That's what they all did. And it wasn't because Nesta believed she deserved it. It was because she was sure that Cassian couldn't give a single fuck about whether or not she got hurt, or however that went. Usually, he unashamedly didn't.

Nesta wouldn't speak because she was terrified that nowadays, Cassian wouldn't bat an eye to her bloody skirts if she came back home sobbing, if she fell to her knees and begged for his help. She dreaded to find the disgust in his eyes, or disdain on his tense lips. Because she was, in his words, a dirty, cruel, selfish and unlovable thing.  _ And worse things he never said aloud. _

Someday, Nesta had been the one with whom Cassian was ready to die. She could recall being held in his nearly limp arms, his ground out promise to find her again in their next life. She could recall shared hopelessness, their hearts painfully locked together, how they had become one in their bloody deathbed.

Now, she was the bitch he was burdened to watch.

Neither was too happy about it.

That it's come to this: she didn't trust him with her life or pride, wouldn't let him know just how many people were actually willing to tear her apart; that she had to take matters into her own hands. That's because her fears had no sense of measurement; they shot for the moon, they'd set a whole forest ablaze if it meant seizing a branch from the ground.

Yes.

Nesta hates that she wrecked some piece of the picturesque illyrian scenery while defending herself from some drunklings that couldn't have been older than a century, and that she managed to do anything  _ but. _ Pale thick roots arose from the dirt, trees swayed like they were alive, the wind whistled like a threat. Clouds thickened, rocks flew, a towering waterfall came apart and smashed itself against the woods, flooding a whole meadow. Her magic, like before, had managed to destroy absolutely everything  _ but _ the intended target. All males flew above the flood with ugly frowns and searching eyes, looking for aggravated revenge; the outburst had been useless.

Now, Cassian hates that he only learned about Nesta being tirelessly hounded until one of their most beautiful ecosystems suspiciously crashed, and he had to fish the raging woman out of an angry flow. There were twigs knotted to her hair and ugly handprints spread across her skin. The front of her dress was torn. It wouldn't close; many buttons were amiss. Which Cassian wouldn't notice until putting those mutts down — until taking in her wild eyes and how tightly she held her dress together over her chest.

Nesta was stiff in his arms as they flew back, and had refused to dress down from her wet clothes once they arrived. She sat in the kitchen, hunched back, knees pressed together, lips gone white. Barely reacted to him wrapping a warm towel around her shoulders, other then eventually holding the ends together and rocking herself back and forth.

Cassian didn't bother trying, because he knew she wouldn't answer any questions for a while. He simply sat in a chair pulled not too far from her, brooding, just as wet. Exhausted — taking off with no ground under his feet was no easy task, much less with a long form cuddled in his arms, as light as Nesta's body was. And he sulked, because there had to be four bodies dismembered in a long flooded meadow, and no one to go take care of the pieces.

Also because the general found no joy in killing any of his brothers, as well deserved as it had been for them.

_ Four males. _

Four males hissing from the sky, shouting vile promises of what they'd do once they found her. And Nesta, with her dress torn, struggling underwater. When had that happened? Not the crashing — well,  _ the crashing, _ but also, when exactly had all of those threats begun? Why were young males ganging up on a malnourished female who couldn't bear to carry a full bucket of water upstairs on her own?

Fucking hell.

"You know that you have to say something." Cassian murmurs after a long time; longer than what it should have been. She didn't move an inch. "Nesta."

"What."

Her voice was a strange sound, low, broken. Maybe because she had shouted herself hoarse in the woods, maybe because she was making an effort not to cry. Or scream some more.

"Are you hurt?"

And  _ that. _ It gets her attention. Nesta's eyes rise full of doubt, and Cassian thinks they're rounded like the moon when she searches for the mockery in his face. It doesn't last long; and he tries not to feel offended by the implications of it. Had he really been that much of a fuck up that Nesta was surprised he cared?

He wouldn't think about it.

But it was true.

Nesta had expected to be screamed at: it's what Cassian liked to do with her. He picked at her flaws and roared about them out loud until she had no other option but back away. He loved it. Crushing her down and rubbing the effects of her wrongs all over her face until she felt like hiding and crying.

Nesta had been dreading it ever since it all started in the first place:  _ why the hell were you in the woods? Are you so nasty that you can't seem to make any friends inside our clan? Did you really have to provoke those males? What were you doing with them, why were you there? Why did they go after you? Why couldn't you defend yourself? Maybe if you cared, maybe if you listened and trained like you've been told, then none of this would have happened. Now four soldiers are dead because of you. _

Nesta had been repeating those in her mind ever since the first wave swept her off her feet. They sounded an awful lot like Cassian's voice, and she could also picture herself being scolded under his towering, scrutinizing gaze, even though the words were hers. All to remind her that she was a stupid woman who did nothing right and had bad things in life deserved and long coming.

Bad women were punished and they didn't get to cry about it. That's how things were.

However, what Nesta had not considered, by any means, was that Cassian would actually care to  _ ask _ if she was hurt. And even when he asked, she had way too much trouble believing his stress was genuine.  _ Well, _ maybe because Nesta was her baby sister's porcelain doll and Cassian didn't want to report to Feyre that she had been played with under his watch.

"Will you talk to me?" He insisted, forcing himself to sound soft.

It wouldn't come naturally otherwise.

Cassian felt way too many things as he watched Nesta resume her rocking back and forth on the chair. There was green flamed rage and seething violence, which weren't really directed to her. There was hopelessness and exhaustion, there was so much shame. Shame that she didn't trust him, that she doubted him, that he had been so blind and allowed them both to turn into this mess. That he had once promised to keep her safe and then managed to break it every single time. There was fear and heartbreak.

_ "What." _

She did want to cry, Cassian realizes. That's precisely why her voice was so strange, why she sounded choked up; her eyes were both pearly and red.

Still, not a single tear streaked down her face.

The last time Cassian had seen her cry, they flew above a battlefield, corpses piled under their feet. Her father was still a living man, sailing to the shore in a ship that bore her name. Back then, it had been the closest Nesta ever got to justice. It was cut short.

"Tell me, are you hurt?"

"No." She whined, angling her head to the side. Hiding some portion of her face.

She was fine. Nesta was perfectly fine. She wouldn't cry over this, she wouldn't feel any of it. That's how things went: she got hurt and then was left to brace herself. There was no poking wounds. There was no going over any hurt and asking questions. If it was over, then it was time to forget.

"What about those bruises? Don't they hurt?" Cassian locked his jaw, trying not to stare into the purple handprints around her neck, which Nesta made to hide under the towel. He could tell she wanted him to go away and never mention the incident again, but it wasn't happening. Not again.

"Nes,"

"What."

"What happened?"

She didn't bother to correct him for the nickname. And it didn't feel right.

"Nothing. It's fine."

"It isn't. It's clearly not fine." Cassian tried taking a deep breath, feeling his heart leaping beats in a slow, agonizing rhythm. "Talk to me?"

_ About anything. Tell me anything. Tell me something about today, last month, about a year ago. Tell me something about war or that awful solstice night, tell me something from when we first met. Tell me to fuck off or tell me what you want for dinner. Tell me you're hungry. Or maybe just cry. _

"It is. It's fine." She nods, tightening her fingers around the towel, and Cassian sees her knuckles are bruised. "I'm good now. It's over."

"You're hurt."

"I'm not!"

That's the loudest she had been in a long while. Still, it didn't feel like fire. It felt like sharp blades clashing together. Slicing and cold, dead.

He'd fish the answer out. He'd make her say it.

"What did they do to you?"

Nesta froze if only for a second, pale eyes spacing out, looking into nothing. She schooled herself fast. Her answer was anything but.

"I went for a walk. When I heard them there I took another path, but then they followed me. I tried to push them away and it… I lost control. I didn't mean to destroy anything. With them, it didn't get that far."

"I had figured this out. It's not what I asked." Cassian breathed out, holding his control in a tight leash. "What did they do to you, Nesta?"

The shudder that cuts through her spine is, sadly, known to him. From a time where she was even smaller, when she wore a tailored lavender gown that felt soft under his hands, when the way his lips pressed against the soft skin of her neck got him thinking about the future.

That same soft skin, now bruised.

It made him see flames.

"It's nothing. That's how things are. It's over now. Leave it."

Cassian has no way to know, but it's not too hard to understand what she's trying to say. And because he's a bastard just as stubborn, he knows how to go next.

"Then tell me what  _ he _ did."

For Nesta, it was like freezing ice poured over her spine. It was a  _ "how dare you?" _ trying to tear off her throat in another hoarse scream, her hands balled in tight fists and wishing to swing at his perfect, handsome face. Into his stubbled jaw, right over his tall cheeks, or into one of his eyes. He was big enough and she, small enough that it would probably fit.

Because some part of her, some dormant and long tamed part of her, still raged and knew she deserved justice. Some part of her that wished for something to soothe her hurt.

And Cassian, that son of a bitch, had managed to coerce it out.

"Leave me."

"Why? So you can sulk and forget about it?"

_ "Cassian…" _

_ Cassian… _ It electrifies him. It's in the awareness of her voice, the consciousness behind it.  _ There. _

"You wouldn't let me do anything then, you won't let me do anything now. And we both know it's not right. You were hurt, Nesta." There something kin to a shudder crossing his spine, some vile emotion that makes him shake.

"The stupid bruises will be gone in two days. This dress was worn out already." She shakes her head, refusing to meet his eyes still. "You killed them. It's over. What do you want from me?"

"I don't want anything from you, Nesta. I want things for you." His despair was thin veiled, but he had managed to keep his voice down. It was a victory. "I want you to stop inflicting yourself."

_ I want you to understand what happened to you and I want you to be enraged. Because those things were repulsive and vile, because no one deserves this, and you have a right to seek justice. Because when I gave you an option, back then, you chose to brush it off and protect a man who wasn't worth your mercy. _

He doesn't say any of it. There's so many things he doesn't say. It's how it's always been during his entire life. And shouldn't… Shouldn't he change, too? Is it fair to ask her to open her heart when he's never been willing to do the same?

"And what exactly is that supposed to mean?" That was loud, that was alive, that was  _ her. _ Nesta, if only for a glimpse.

"Nesta," he breathes, ready to tear himself down. For her, and only her. "Tell me. Are you hurt?"

Nesta hates him.

She hates that he's loud and clear and that his sight can reach inside her heart. She hates that he's here, that he hasn't given up, she hates that he's asking, that he acts like he cares. She hates that he won't leave her alone, hates that soaking in his attention feels like partaking in some form of luxury she simply can't afford. She hates that her eyes water and that she nods  _ "yes". _

What bad would it do to let him know?

"I'm hurt too." When Cassian speaks, he's floating. It feels like soaring in a swift air current in the middle of spring. "Really bad. And I'm fucking enraged all the time."

Maybe she doesn't hate him.  _ Maybe. _ Maybe, because she loves that he's trully  _ there.  _ They stand in the same place, as miserable as it is.

"No." She shakes her head, pulling the towel closer.  _ No, _ because Cassian was deep belly laughs, eyes wrinkled in delight, he was glory and might. He was unveiled happiness, unadulterated peace, pure hearted kindness. Cassian was  _ good _ and good people didn't deserve any hurt.

"I'm just trying to let you know, sweetheart." Now when his voice was soft, and it really was, it took not an ounce of effort. Neither could remember the last time he had used that sweet pet name. "None of this is right. It never was."

He had absolutely no right to do any of this, Nesta thinks, but she also reasons that it couldn't have been anyone else.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, was ever fine.

Her life was an unexisting mess, she had been through one too many trials, and none of it should ever have been forgotten or brushed aside. But that was everything: it was all Nesta knew. Choking up on her own and moving on with building agony clogged up to her throat. She was hurt and miserable. She needed out, whatever that meant.

"Why do you even want to hear this?" Her voice was almost like a whine, holding back from crying.

"I never want you to hurt. But if you are, I hope you to trust me enough to let me know. We can figure it out together." Because it's been centuries and he hasn't known how to deal with anything either. "We can share."

And Cassian had too much. Enough that it would be unfair to burden her with his centuries of pain when she hadn't lived for longer than three decades. But he also reasons that it couldn't have been anyone else.

"I kicked his face."

"What?"

"He pushed me around and I couldn't stand. He tore my yellow dress. And the things he tried to do… I clawed him off. I kicked his face." Nesta swallowed, blinking away flashes of long buried memories she didn't want lingering behind her eyes. They weren't welcome. "I came back home with his blood on my shoes."

Old torn shoes she didn't have the money to replace, because the few coins they had left were meant to bargain for food.

"I walked out, but it still felt like I was the one losing something. Like I did something wrong."

Cassian wanted to ask,  _ who was he? Tell me his name. Tell me how this happened. Tell me how to find this rat. _ But he held it in.  _ Who would ever do this, who made her feel this way?  _ And they were spiraling awfully fast. He and his brothers had turned into hell the life of a handful of males who had harmed Morrigan centuries back. Why would he quietly sit and let it pass that someone had harmed Nesta in such way?

Cassian had made a promise, one that was broken one too many times.

"And he wasn't a threat?"

"A threat?  _ I'm _ a threat. He is a joke."

And Cassian loves the strength behind her voice.

"I was supposed to marry him."

The towel was freed from her vicious hold, so that she could fiddle with her fingers instead. She didn't know what to think. Nesta would argue that she didn't trust him, didn't trust anyone — still, speaking to him felt safe. However that came back to her later.

"Marry?" 

Cassian had never imagined anything like that, and it robs him of breath. From what he could remember, Elain was the one with an engagement. 

"It was supposed to save us. He wasn't rich and I knew he was bad. I knew his family was awful. Still, it would help." Nesta shrugs, and she can't look into his eyes. The idea of his careful, attentive gaze is enough to make her shrink. "But I didn't do it. I knew I was better off starving then staying anywhere near him. When I broke things off… I don't know why I didn't see it coming. He had pushed other things before."

Cassian doesn't ask what other things, because teasing his rage was unwise. Four males had died already.

"It was  _ not _ your fault."

"I don't know, maybe it was. Maybe I had it coming." She shakes her head, and Cassian can't believe that he's actually listening to that. "It doesn't matter anymore. It's over now."

And what exactly can he say to contradict that? Other than surrendering to his instinctual wish to whisk her into his arms and hold tight like a pillow, which he definitely can't and won't do.

"Some would argue that it's never too late to find closure."

"Is that your way of asking for an address?"

Being called out, Cassian would normally defend himself or laugh it off, but that's  _ Nesta with an attitude, _ and it makes him want to beam. Fuck yes, he wants an address. He'd hunt down a king for her,  _ had done it before. _ Some lanky human boy would be no trouble.

"What I mean is that while you don't have to drag yourself and mope, you don't have to pretend it didn't hurt either. You can't blame yourself and carry this around like it is your fault."

He knows this — and Nesta, somewhere, knows this too. The problem mostly lies over the fact that neither of them really knows what to do with it. Shamefully for Cassian, who lived time enough to have learned things of life. Still, that's what he mostly was: old and unwise. But he'd fix this. For her, he would learn, and they'd make it better. Whatever better was, or the means.

She looked up for once.

To Cassian, whose wings were tense like he was ready to fly across the continent. To track down some boy who would whither in age by the time Nesta was finished learning a new language or mastering some craft. Who would die faster than what most fae took to conceive, who would die of something most of them could resolve with half a thought. And while it was sad for most, Nesta thought, to that son of a bitch, Tomas Mandray, it was only fair.

Why did it still hurt, though?

And why exactly did it feel like some weight had been lifted off her chest? 

Why did she feel light, why did she feel angry? Why was she furious, why did she want justice and revenge? Why were her fists curling, why was she ready to bolt and rage? Why was she willing to revisit her memories and be the judge of them?

Because, they both reason, she feels alive. And that was something great to be.

It was a good start.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> That was it! Tell me if you have an observation.


End file.
